RSC16 April Round-up

Monday morning, bright and early, I had surgery to put all the pieces and parts of my poor broken wrist back together again.  I'm so thankful for the skills of the orthopedic surgeon I went to.  He seems to think it will heal well and I'll be back to normal in a few weeks.  Fingers crossed!

So I have spent the week doing a lot of this...covered in my favorite quilt, wrist on ice or elevated, and my ipad tuned to the multitude of lovely quilt blogs for some fabric and pattern inspiration.

There's also been a tiny bit of this...thanks to a sweet friend who knew I was going to need something more to do!  Turns out, coloring is quite soothing and I think I will be doing some more in the days to come.

Since we are just about to the end of April,  I did want to get out my RSC blocks and see how I'm progressing.  I haven't figured out how to sew one-handed yet, but one-handed photography (with my tiny camera) is somewhat doable! 

Inspiration from Gayle got me started on some Monkey Wrench blocks, and so far I've made two in each of our colors of the month.  I love these little blocks!

I've also been making six 16 patch blocks every month, and here is my collection of those.  Somehow a green block squeezed its way into the picture.  I'm sure there will be some more greens in this quilt's future!

And my Scrap Jar Stars - loving these more each month!

I had been working on Double Four Patch blocks, too, but did only a few in orange before my fall from grace (or my graceful fall???), so those will have to wait awhile to get caught up.  

I am definitely having some sewing withdrawal.  To go from sewing everyday to not being able to do anything has been tough.  Somehow, I will figure out a way to get back to it!  Things could be worse - I met a funny little lady in Starbucks who told me she once fell and broke both wrists at the same time.  Oh dear! That had me counting my blessings!

Here's hoping everyone has a wonderful weekend - and that you will share all of this week's progress for those of us who are just armchair quilters right now!

Check out lots more rainbow, scrappy sewing with Angela and Cynthia.

Unexpected

Here is what happened to me this week - darn it!

I was enjoying a lovely spring afternoon walk with a friend, and I missed a curb.  Down I went and fractured my wrist.  Those few seconds changed a lot about my life for the next few weeks, and maybe even months. Of course, one of the first things I thought was, "I won't be able to sew!"

Yesterday, I went to see the orthopedic surgeon who will be operating on my wrist on Monday, and he told me that sewing is good therapy for wrists, so Hallelujah for that!  Maybe it won't be as long as I thought.

Before all of this happened, I did have a chance to work on some more orange blocks for the RSC16 April color of the month.  A few 4 patches, one made into a double 4 patch, and my goal of six 16 patches for the month!

I am loving the variety of oranges that I found to work with!  Favorite fabric find of the week - these adorable birds flying through the clouds on an orange background.

Hope all of the rest of you had  a very routine week!  Lol!

I'll be linking up to Angela and Cynthia over the weekend so I can check out what everyone else has been up to.  Virtual quilting will have to take care of me for awhile.  (Maybe I'll get out a stack of fabric to pet!)

Quilty Math

I was a pretty good math student in school, and math was always one of my favorite subjects to teach to my 5th graders, but I am finding quilt math to be a bit challenging.  Fortunately, I don't have to do it very often!   This afternoon I've been playing with my Flying Geese blocks a little bit more.  I decided I wanted to make some that were half the size of the original ones I made last week.

Following the Connecting Threads tutorial again, but this time cutting all the dimensions in half, should give me some half size geese units, shouldn't it?!?  Look at all the math I had to do:

I made two new sets of flying geese units using the dimensions I figured out and here's how they turned out - 

They were a little bit more than half of my original units.  Looking back at the tutorial, and at my chicken scratches, I just realized that my mistake wasn't in the math, it was in getting confused between the "actual" size of the blocks and the "finished" size!  Oh well, that is how you learn, right?  It's a good thing I am just playing and not making something for an actual pattern.

Adding some solid strips and squaring up helps a lot!

And playing again with a layout (maybe for a red, white, and blue table topper for my dining room table), shows the new possibilities!

I'll be sharing over at Oh Scrap! at Quilting is More Fun than Housework tomorrow!

A Little More with Orange

Well, I'm not sure where this week went, but it has gone by, and without very much sewing around here.  It doesn't help that I was gone for 3 out of the last 7 days either.  Not that I didn't enjoy what I was doing on those days - a quick visit to see my son to celebrate his birthday, and a trip down to Denver for a Colorado Rockies baseball game.  All good fun!

I did manage to make one more orange Scrap Jar Star to add to the pile.  This one has some black incorporated into it to pull it into the Monarch Butterfly idea.  I also used some of that cute candy corn fabric that I showed last week.  I definitely want these stars to have scraps of all of my favorite fabrics in them!

I do love how these stars are starting to come together and create something when I look at them all together!

The rainbow is forming!

There's lots on my to-do list for the next week - finish a gift for a friend, work on some more blocks for my RSC projects, experiment some more with flying geese blocks, who knows?!  In fact, I'm going to go sew right now!

Linking up with Angela over at SoScrappy for Scrap Happy Saturday to see what my scrap happy friends have been up to this week!

Flying with Geese

A month ago or so, a friend in my quilt group brought a big tub of her leftover 30s fabrics to share with everyone.  She had fnished up a couple of projects with them, and was ready to pass them on.  I've never had any in my stash, and have never really been drawn to them, but, hey, scraps!  So, I ended up with this pretty pile.

I've used a few bits and pieces for my RSC and Quilty 365 blocks, but had been thinking about what else I might do with them.  One block I haven't ever made much, but wanted to get some practice on, is Flying Geese.  I knew there were multiple ways to make them, so decided to research the method where you can make four at a time with no waste.  I imagine there are tutorials everywhere online for this method, but I used this one from Connecting Threads.

I had some solids in my stash that seemed to coordinate pretty well with the 30s florals, so I added them in to the mix.  This method has you cut a 5 3/4 inch square for the main fabric, and 4 - 3 1/8 inch squares for the coordinating color.  (The tutorial includes how to do the math in order to get different sizes.)  Place two of the smaller squares at opposite corners of the larger square, draw a line, and sew on either side of the line.

Cut on the drawn line to make two new pieces.

Then add the two remaining small squares as shown below, draw a line through the center, sew on either side of the line, and cut apart again.

After pressing, you end up with four flying geese!  If your piecing and stitching is precise, they will be 4 1/2 inches finished.  Mine were pretty close, but I did have to do a little trimming!

So far, I've made four sets of flying geese.  I laid them out one way, with all the same colors together.

And another way, just to see what they would look like if I mixed them up a little bit.  

Kind of fun to play with!  Who knows what they will become...  There is certainly still a lot of fabric left to make more flying geese and end up with something bigger!  

Linking up with Cynthia at Quilting is More Fun than Housework for Oh Scrap! today.  Have a lovely Sunday, everyone!

All the Oranges

It has happened the same way each month this year.  Angela announces the color of the month for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, and I go on a treasure hunt.  What fabric have I got that I can make my blocks out of?  Is it orange or too red?  Is this one really orange or more yellow?  Look at those adorable orange buttons! Decisions, decisions!

                            

And then I google "shades of orange" and find this...

Who knew there were so many oranges!  So, I can use them all!  And with such fun results.

I love how my first Scrap Jar Star turned out - it reminds me of orange creamsicles or Cuties, the tasty little oranges that I eat all winter.

And in my stash, I found the perfect low volume fabric to go with an orange 16 patch - candy corn!  (And we all thought brown with pink was so yummy!)  I'll be using this one again!

So it has been a fun first week of orange, and I still have more blocks to make!  Better get back to work.  I'll be linking up with Angela over at SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday.  See you there!

Quilty 365

It's been awhile since I wrote a post about my orange peel blocks for Quilty 365, but I have been keeping up with them.  By my count I should be up to 118 of them, starting last December 1st and getting almost all the way through March except for this past week!  (I'll get caught up this afternoon.:)  They are overflowing the tin in which I originally kept them!

Here are the last 36 I've made, so a little bit of February and most of March, in no particular order.

Some of mine celebrate special days, places, or events, but many are a scrap I pulled out that I liked for that day.  

You might see...

purple and yellow pieced together for March's RSC colors.  Or...

an orange peel showing that my husband and I went wine tasting that day.   Or...

I might have gotten together with friends for coffee. 

In early March, I visited my mom in Arizona and the fabric on the left reminds me of all of the cactus down there.  One night, as Mom and I were going for a walk, we heard owls hooting somewhere in the neighborhood!  You've seen that owl fabric before - I'm glad I could use some for this quilt!

My husband and I are avid birdwatchers, and this fabric was just perfect to show that!

Almost two weeks ago now, we had a gray and snowy day, followed by a day of beautiful Colorado sunshine.  You just never know what you're going to get in the spring around here!

And this last one is perfect for showing that I have been tutoring kids in math every Monday afternoon this year.

I admit that I don't make one of these blocks every day, but as I go through each week, I usually pick scraps to go with the days, and then make a bunch on Sunday afternoon.  It works for me!  It's going to be quite the collection of blocks when I get to the end of November.  Deciding how they will go together could be challenging!

If you want to see other ways that people have been using scraps in their quilting, go visit Oh Scrap! At Quilting is More Fun than Housework.  One of my favorite places to visit on Sunday afternoons!

Rainbow Scrap Challenge 2016 - April!

Goodbye, March...

Hello, April!

I knew there must have been a reason I pulled these out last night -

Meanwhile, this week, while waiting to find out April's color, I worked on several miscellaneous projects. Among them - some grown-up eye spy blocks for Kat's March block drive.

It was fun to hunt through my scraps and stash and find things to fussy cut.

And a few more Monkeys - now I have two in each RSC color.  I see that a little orange snuck its way into one of them!

And, finally, because I just needed something to sew on last night which required very little brainpower - a couple of purple and yellow mug rugs.  Small, simple, and useful!

Now, I think I can go make something with my orange scraps!  Happy April, everyone!  Looking forward to seeing what everyone else has been up to, tomorrow at SoScrappy for Scrap Happy Saturday.